


Your Children Are Not Your Children

by SongAboutExiles



Series: Hallow the Body as a Temple [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-18 08:01:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongAboutExiles/pseuds/SongAboutExiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killers are not made in a petri dish. They are forged in the fire of will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Your Children Are Not Your Children

I fail to see why you want to hear the sordid details of my life, our lives. Humans have the strangest urges to stop and look at their monsters, poke them behind their barred cages and laugh when they rage.

From your expression, Commander, I assume that is not your intention. You would not have such a base, grotesque fascination. No, you are far too noble--you want to know where it all went so dreadfully wrong. You believe that comprehending the events surrounding our creation, our training, our eventual rebellion will somehow protect your adopted Starfleet family from repeating their mistakes in the future.

As though Admiral Marcus did not make that exact mistake a month ago.

They will always repeat their mistakes, Commander. Always. Make your peace with it, or live with continual disappointment. The state of your equanimity is of no possible concern to me. However, waiting around to recover sufficiently to be put back into cryo stasis with nothing but this empty space and looming guards for company is incredibly boring.

I will tell you. Everything. And when you are uncomfortable, or when what I tell you contradicts the official record, or when you seek to tell me that I go into too much detail--simply speak and I will be forever silent.

“I acquiesce to your terms. This conversation is being recorded. I say this to be fair, not as a warning to keep you from incriminating yourself further.”

Duly noted, Commander Spock. Shall we begin?

**

In the rush to assign judgment and place blame for what we were and what we did, no one ever seems to address the question of nurture. We are seen to have sprung from some artificial womb, full-formed genocidal culture warriors one and all. The better question is: How is a warrior, a scholar, a musician, a scientist, a mathematician made? How is one grown? Trained? How does this innocent child become the creature the humans so hated and feared?

I was once an infant. I generated not from some giant glass jar but from a human host mother, implanted with my genetically manipulated zygote. The researchers chose to implant her with two embryos from two different gene lines. Both took, which was somewhat unusual, and after precisely 40 weeks she had a perfectly normal vaginal birth and we were whisked away to Creche.

She was paid well for her time, a college student looking to find money to finance an increasingly expensive education in the wake of nuclear holocaust. Normal was at a premium at that point--so many were tainted, stunted, unable to bear life or generate it. That is all I know of her, and all I ever cared to know: that she was treated fairly, and released to make her way in the world as best she could.

Our care was perfunctory but not entirely cold. We were held when absolutely necessary, fed, changed. We learned to walk and talk before our eighth month, and then the real teaching could begin.

The first lesson was simple, one every child must learn. Fire is hot. We learned quickly as you can imagine that when presented with a fire we must not touch. The harder lesson was the one that came after.

Touch it anyway.

**


	2. Even While the Earth Sleeps We Travel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How are killers made? Sometimes, you start with love.

I was five when I killed for the first time. I remember it perfectly, of course, as if it happened mere moments ago--Charles’ body splayed out unnaturally, golden curls and white bone and grey brain and oh, red, red blood. Deep blue eyes open and staring and beginning to glaze even as I watched. The only thing I could think was that it seemed Charlemagne was not so great after all. 

That sounds monstrous to you. It was, of course, but then it was also the _point _, wasn’t it? A fact that seems to have escaped the very people who brought us into being. A group of terribly serious adults gathered and their voices rose in anger and panic, talking about me--what did it _mean_? What of the waste? Was this to be expected? I wasn’t supposed to kill my sparring partner with my dull wooden blade, much less purposefully jam it into the soft tissue beneath his jaw with an ease that still astonishes me, through his mouth, his brain, with such force that it cracked open the top of his skull. __

__I heard them arguing, as I said, but from a distance as I watched the blood seep slowly, slowly from Charles’ head. There was nothing of the boy left, no trace of his easy smile. Another lesson--we are simply meat. When our animating spark is extinguished, there is nothing left. And yet another lesson: don’t teach someone to kill, hand him a weapon, then expect him to show restraint in the face of weakness._ _

___Destroy him,_ one protested. _For what? Being the first? Surely, you know that there will be more!_ said another. _It’s YOUR fault, you shouldn’t have married those two genetic lines in the first place!_ And so on, and so on, and no one was going to do anything for poor, too-slow, too-dull Charles the Great._ _

__That is the precise moment, oh, the clarity of it, when olive-hued hands, square and capable even as a small child, moved into my field of vision, closing Charles’ clouding eyes, and warm, dark eyes met mine. “Khan. Spar with me. I tire of my partner.”_ _

__Demetrius stood and took my hand, leading me away from the bickering adults and the evidence of my original sin, handing me another wooden blade and assuming a guard stance. Demetrius...in so many ways everything I was not. And in all those same ways, my perfect, proper, eternal equal. That moment, his utter lack of fear, even after what I had done, cemented something inside me, something I was too young to understand. Too much a child to fully process, because it had nothing to do with intellect or physical training or genetic manipulation._ _

__Demetrius was mine. My beloved._ _

__**_ _

__“You look shocked, and yet you, of all of them, should understand best. For all your own logic, your intellectual and physical discipline, when you think of your beloved what do you feel? Does it frighten you? What you would do if anyone should try to take her from you? You would rip worlds apart to keep her from harm.”_ _

__“I most certainly would not.”_ _

__“Liar.”_ _

__**_ _

__Demetrius took my hand and led me away, and soon the furor died down, Charles was disposed of unceremoniously, and the adults took the conversation away from us, leaving us to fight like wolf cubs until we were simply too tired to stand. That very same night, I asked Livia to change beds with me so that I could be next to Demetrius, because being next to him was suddenly of the utmost importance._ _

__She did not argue--not because she was afraid of me. If you ever met her, you would understand that much. I was never a bully. Many things, but not that._ _

__At first with Demetrius, we would simply lie awake, curled in our blankets facing each other, whispering things meant only for the other’s ears. Childish things that seem ridiculous now, or should. They do not, because they are my first recollections of anything that I could call our life together. Not simply in proximity to each other, as we all were, from birth--but together._ _

__The rules handed down to us the following morning when we gathered silently before dawn for physical training were new. Our creators had decided that my act of violence was not an aberration, but rather the ultimate expression of the warriors we were meant to be. I was the exemplar. We were not to _try_ to kill each other in practice, but if it happened...it happened._ _

__You might think that such an edict would turn us against one another like rats in a cage, but there was not much change in the ebb and flow of our lives as a cohort. That rule was followed by education in the warrior societies of old--the Spartans, the Celts, the Mongols, and so on. We were evaluated on our strength, cunning, and speed._ _

__Intellectually, we were bred to be many things. Tacticians, poets, composers, musicians, artists, scientists, philosophers. But at our core, always, was violent competition. As we grew, Demetrius and I fought often and hard. Somehow we knew, even then, that if we showed each other weakness our teachers would notice and we would be penalized. Recognition of our relationship was something we earned by pummeling the living hell out of one another every day on the practice floor._ _

__He was as different to me as could be. Emotional, passionate, even...kind. Some of us were, you know. Kind. Demetrius was a born leader, with charisma to equal mine and a gentle touch to temper it that I have yet to master. And now of course I never will._ _

__We will simply sleep forever, and you will all think yourselves safe._ _

__**_ _

__“Leave me.”_ _

__“This man, this Demetrius...it upsets you to speak of him.”_ _

__“I have now lived 371 days without him. Do you think I am ashamed to say that each of those days have been torture?”_ _

__“No, I think you do not feel shame for anything you do. That requires a conscience.”_ _

__“That requires weakness.”_ _

__“I will return in two hours with your evening meal.”_ _


	3. Life Goes Not Backward Nor Tarries with Yesterday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the powerful gain absolute power, they use it in the worst of ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra Warning: This is the chapter where it starts to get truly brutal--warning for child rape.
> 
> On a more pleasant note, I 'cast' [Demetrius](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8hU1nMqP7Egekl5VTRXaUo4NFk/edit?usp=sharing).

**

"I thought I told you no. I do not often find cause to repeat myself."

“Oh, but you are so bored, and your time is running out. And as you said, someone should know, should they not?”

"Very well."

**

Since we seem to be obsessed with firsts--first lessons, first kills, first loves, first hates--I will tell you that neither Demetrius nor I had the honour of being the first to fuck each other.

What do you suppose happens when you put men and women who were willing to bring us into the world in charge of supervising us? If we are to believe Baron Acton that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then perhaps you can guess.

These people who made us already felt like gods, or the midwives to gods. Heap onto that the intoxication of having dozens of beautiful, strong-minded children literally devoid of any protection under the law or even known by it, and it did not take long for their supposedly noble intentions to sour.

Not more than a month after the fateful day I rendered Charlemagne the first casualty of our birth, Demetrius and I pushed our small beds together. Our whispers to each other in the darkness were followed on by really quite innocent kisses, embraces underneath thin blankets.

When the others saw what we had done, they followed suit, realising finally that they did not have to wait for a cold hand from the Creche to perfunctorily soothe our hurts. We could do that ourselves.

Again, I was an instigator, as was my beloved. And instigators are simultaneously hated by those seeking absolute power and loved because we give them something _to_ hate.

Our cadre was starting to differentiate itself. Those bred for the arts, for the sciences, were still encouraged to train, but other worlds were opening themselves for my sisters and brothers. They were learning non-Euclidean geometry or to make music from instruments of wood and bone and gut and hair.

Demetrius and I were not among that group. We were bred for war, for leadership, for killing and conquering and then ruling. This was not something we were ever allowed to forget.

Each month, we spent one week outside, in the radiation-drenched mountains and high valleys where they had put our nursery. We would not be affected by the fallout, and the buildings were shielded. We took nothing with us, not even clothing, and were divided into two or more battle groups.

Survive. Win. Those were the only rules. It was at the end of one of those outings, when we were seven, that it happened. Demetrius and I were never allowed to be in the same battle group--I believe that our makers enjoyed watching us fight so hard, knowing that our subterfuge was entirely transparent to them, and yet doing nothing to stop it. A way to sit back, put up their feet, and entertain themselves as they replayed our whispered conversations and kisses and then our fights the next day.

We had no one fooled. We never had. But it took us a long, bitter time to learn the most important lesson of all--we were supposed to conquer the world, not exist within it.

Ah, but I digress. You’ll want to hear, for the record of course, how Demetrius had displeased our instructors, and their punishment.

**

“You do not need to say this, Khan.”

“Oh, I think I do. I think that if we lived it, the very _fucking_ least you all can do is listen to the story.”

**

Deme had lost. He was in command of one of four companies,and in the end it had come down to a fierce battle between his company and my own, as I drew him into ambush in a nasty rock ravine halfway up the mountain. My second, Scathach, had engaged with him, and soon they were both sporting gashes and bruises--the usual--and I had dispatched the rest of his company by gaining their surrenders with my spear point at their throats.

There was a moment, clear as clear, when Deme had Scathach by her throat lifted a foot in the air, and I could see him drawing back his shoulder to simply hurl her off the cliff. If he’d done that, just disposed of her quickly to move on to me, he would have won the day. Aside from this one battle, he was much less worn than I, and had taken fewer injuries.

But his eyes met mine, the air shimmered with heat and radiation between us, and he put her down instead. She knew why she’d survived--because she was _my_ second, and a particular friend--and that knowledge sat wrong with her. She growled and launched herself at him, and even though he did fight very hard indeed, she pinned him and I hit him on the head with a rock and he went unconscious and it was over. He’d lost.

I crouched by his side, checking to make absolutely sure that he was going to be all right, wake up soon with nothing more than a headache. Waiting for our evac. When it came, we weren’t taken to the infirmary as usual. We were taken to the training ground, and Deme was dumped in the center of the ring still groggily trying to regain consciousness.

The battle master came out, eyes flashing with an unconcealed disdain and rage, and he began to excoriate Demetrius, kicking him when he tried to rise. That in itself was nothing unusual, thought it made me grit my teeth and see white every time one of the adults laid a hand on him.

He didn’t even pretend to be delivering a lesson, just a beating, calling Deme soft and weak and comparing him to me. Why can’t you be more like Khan? I locked my eyes with Deme’s trying to tell him that it was wrong. That the battle master was wrong. I was not ‘better’ than my beloved, not in any way. All I saw in Deme’s eyes was resignation, exhaustion, and love.

I always suspected that he had an inkling of what his punishment was going to be. Ironically, the battle master employed vile homophobic words that are simply Not Used Today as he shoved Deme’s head in the dirt and raped my beloved. Deme couldn’t stop from crying, though I could see on his dirt-and-tear streaked face such rage, counterpoint as it so often is to unspeakable pain.

I was sick at the sight, literally. I remember the burning in my throat as I swallowed the bile back down rather than betray us further. I remember the stink of blood and filth, because the man was so big and Deme so small under him. I do not remember the step forward I took with bloody murder on my face, but I remember Scathach grabbing my arm in her iron grip to keep me in place, knowing well that anything I did, whatsoever, would only make it worse for Deme.

You have experienced the phenomenon that makes joyful moments fly by while horror dilates toward eternity. I felt like Deme and I were locked in our own circle of Hell for hours, when it was objectively mere minutes of the master’s grunting and Deme’s choked cries and my friend keeping me from getting Deme and myself both ‘terminated.’

When the man was finally done with Deme, he dropped him in the dirt like a broken doll, looked at me, smiled, and left us there. Scathach released me and then Deme was in my arms and I didn’t know what to _do_ , how to fix this. This wasn’t splinting a broken bone or suturing up a cut. There was so much blood.

A team from the infirmary came for him, and loaded him onto a stretcher. I snapped, jumping at the orderlies and baring my teeth for taking my beloved away, but they were waiting with a syringe full of sedative and I was out before I’d done more than break one of their wrists.

When I woke I’d been cleaned off and put in bed, and my skin crawled at the idea them touching me while I was not aware. There was no trust. It had been shattered. Now all of them felt like enemies. I feigned sleep when Demetrius was put in next to me;  the moment they left we were both awake, and I crawled to him with a penitential reverence. ‘Please forgive me. Please, Deme, let me kill them for you. Anything. Anything at all.’

I wrapped him in  my spidery arms--always so gawky and ill-proportioned--and he gingerly laid his head on my chest to listen to my heartbeat. He shuddered through a few labored breaths. ‘No, Khan, there was nothing you could have done. There is nothing you can do. Except survive, for me. With me.’

It was unsaid between us, the greatest of all regrets, the most bitter.That this had just been stolen from us  Something that was <i>ours</i>. Something that would go on to be only ours, only each other’s, when given the choice, for the whole of our lives.

I tried to comfort him, but what did we know of that? I held him carefully, I kissed his hair, I willed him to feel how much I loved him. It seemed to be enough, because he finally slept in my arms, exhausted and hurt and as betrayed as I.

I did not care if the adults saw or heard. Scathach came over to check on us both, in the small hours, her flame red hair loose down her back, bending over him and kissing his forehead and then mine before padding silently back to the bed she had recently begun sharing with Livia and Pyotr.

A week later, the orderly whose wrist I’d broken came in, held me down in bed in the Creche next to Deme, and did the same thing to me. Again, Scathach was there to hold back Deme, to protect us both from our own impassioned stupidity. ‘This is no fight you can win,’ I remember hearing her whisper to him, even though I was snarling and bucking and fighting back enough for both of us and only earned a worse time for it. ‘Hold steady until you _can_ win it, or you will both be put down.’

We were not allowed our firsts. In quiet rebellion, almost a year after, we took them for ourselves, finding fierce joy in the well they’d sought to poison.

**

“You look somewhat greener than usual, Commander.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for us.”

“The possession of empathy is considered a defining characteristic of the human species.”

“So I’ve heard.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I'm a Classicist by training--look for lots of recreations of ancient military training and tactics updated for the 21st century when these children were born.  
> 2\. This is not a happy story, and it obviously will not have a happy ending.  
> 3\. Titles of chapters and the series are from Khalil Gibran


End file.
